2-3-4 Friday
‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any
online newsletter’
1 THOUGHT
In the 19th century, Scott and Amundsen were racing for the South
Pole.
On good days, Scott would drive his team to exhaustion.
Whereas on days with bad weather, Scott would sit in his tent and complain.
But Amundsen was different. On bad days,
according
to Roland Huntford’s account in The Last Place on Earth, Scott faced 6 days of gale-force winds and traveled on none, whereas Amundsen faced 15 and traveled on 8.
Jim Collins and Morten Hansen, in Great By Choice
On great days, where the weather was glorious, Amundsen’s team encouraged him to push. He said no. He continued to keep them on a steady pace of 15-20 miles per day.
This seems stupid.
Guess who won though.
Amundsen.
You would think this sounds unusual. After all, doesn’t it make sense to
work hard when the situation is great, and to work less when things are not so great?
For example, if you didn’t feel so great today, you might hold things off and take a break. You might tell yourself,
I’m not feeling too well. I should rest.
And you should!
But the more important concept is knowing when to throttle back when things are going great. That’s hard.
After all, when you’re in the flow, it can seem stupid to just hold back.
Amundsen shows a good example though, of what can happen when you
maintain a steady pace, in good times, and in bad. This concept was termed by business gurus Jim Collins and Morten Hansen as the 20 Mile March.
Why hold back in good times? Because it builds latency. Latency is a term from engineering which is defined as:
a time delay between the cause and the effect of some physical change in the system being observed.
Today, having time delays is seen as a bad thing. We would bounce off if a page takes too long to load. If a colleague takes too long to handle a piece of work, we would grumble.
And we seek to optimise and capitalise, especially when things are going well.
But what we can see from Amundsen’s example is that building in ‘latency’ into the good situation we are experiencing, can help us to win, in the long run.
This sounds conceptual.
Let me take it down a notch.
Let’s say you’re experiencing a good work situation now. Your
supervisors are great, you’re getting a hang of the work, and you’re working better with your colleagues. In times like these, you may be tempted to take on more and more responsibilities, since things are going well. People will notice that you’re generally getting better, and will start handing you more and more work.
But in times like these, maybe it helps to pause, and pace.
How?
1 TIP
First determine what’s the measurement for your ‘mile’. For some, it may be by project, others may be the number of clients they serve, and yet for others, it may be the number of hours they work. Just as Amundsen limited his team to 15-20
miles per day, you too can limit the amount of work you do, in good and bad times.
For example, personally, because I’m involved in different scopes of work, what helps me is limiting the number of projects I take on to 4 per quarter.
How that plays out on a day to day basis is knowing what the daily
actions (related to what you’re working on) are. Again, using my own work as an example, I know that the two ’20-Mile Marches’ I have to do each day are:
- Write and publish 1500 words each day
- Pitch one new client each day
This allows me to intentionally move towards where I want to go.
If you’re working well today, remember, successful times also need a throttle - so that you don’t burn out that success, but rather, sustain it for the long run.
1 TALK
Fanatic discipline:
10Xers display extreme consistency of action— consistency with values, goals, performance standards, and methods.
They are utterly relentless, monomaniacal, unbending in their focus on their quests.
Jim Collins and Morten Hansen, Great by Choice
P.S. Want to think differently about a problem you're facing? Let’s chat (and no worries, there's no fee!)
John
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Young, Live Well - Work Your Love